Online Entrepreneur: Avoid Traps. Expert Advice, Tools & Info.

Targeted Website Traffic – It’s Make or Break!

Richard — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:02:44 +0000

A term you hear about a lot is ‘Targeted website traffic’ -. Most people understand the concept and know what it means. Some people actually strive for it and some don’t.

Plainly, with targeted website traffic, your site has a chance to make some money and there’s a slight chance you might be able to make a living of the internet. Without targeted website traffic however, your site is doomed to die a slow death until it quietly fades away into the dust like so many thousands of others.

If you search on any of the major search engines for ’traffic’ you will get mostly websites regarding automobile traffic, traffic reports, road conditions, road works, etc.

If you search on any of the major search engines for the term ‘website traffic’ you will get mostly websites regarding traffic exchanges, stat counters, web searches, page optimization, how to build a website, etc.

If you search on any of the search engines for the term ‘targeted website traffic’ you will finally get the picture of what it’s all about – making money online. That’s why you are here, why you have a website and why you are reading this post in the first place.

Targeted Website Traffic is King

This may be stating the obvious but without sufficient targeted website traffic to your website nothing will happen – no sales, no rankings, no popularity, nothing. You need targeted traffic in order to generate sales, provide leads, gather email addresses and create advertising exposure.

So many good things happen when one can actually tap into the targeted website traffic market that it’s difficult to name them all. Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about:

* Links
More targeted traffic leads come from links to similar websites than any other source. These can be either links to your website, Adsense links, press releases, blogs, or any other form of advertising that gets your website in front of other people’s eyes.

* Sales
Yes your ultimate objective, sales is what you are after. Only targeted traffic will get you the sales you need to stay in business on the internet.

* Free Advertising
As the search engines pick up on your increasing number of visitors, especially if they come from related linking websites, your rankings will hopefully rise and your PageRank will increase. Having your site on the first three pages of any major search engine is optimum exposure for your site and will bring in customers ‘off the street’, as it were. That’s Free Advertising.

* Even More Links
Another benefit to your rise in the search engine rankings, and your rising PageRank, will be your ability to be inundated with link requests from every other website imaginable. Remember, stick with only those that relate to your own site. Again, free advertising.

It’s one thing to get your website noticed by the search engines but it’s quite another to get your website noticed by the buying public. Just because you have great links, great positioning in the major search engines, and great links will not produce sales.

So, how can you become successful where most of the others have failed? What is the silver bullet key to making all these sales that everyone is talking about? Well….

The (proverbial) Silver Bullet

Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Take a deep breath, and just remember this one simple fact of internet life: The website makes the sales, not you, not your links, not your search engine presence, not even your friends or comrades whom you sent to check out your site’ Unless your site screams out to the world, ‘B-U-Y M-Y P-R-O-D-U-C-T !’, you will not make enough money to buy even one month’s worth of service.

You can buy, grab, obtain, link, and get all the targeted website traffic in the world but it will not sell a single product and/or service unless your website is compelling to do the selling. Design is one thing, content is another and, please remember content is everything. It makes the search engine robots and spiders visit your site on a daily basis, it makes visitors want to buy, bookmark, or return for a future purchase, and it makes one think, ‘Do I really need this product and/or service?

Constantly remind yourself, ‘Design and content, design and content…’, over and over. Plus, once your website is complete, it isn’t. A proper website is always refining itself and a good webmaster knows this. The search engine robots and spider love new content so a little change here or there will make a huge splash with them as they cruise your site on a daily basis.

How Google Evaluates Your Backlinks

Richard — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:22:06 +0000

As a critical off-page SEO factor backlinks are huge. You need a good quantity of quality and relevant backlinks. They need to be permanent and as far as possible unique. Its no good if a competitor just copies what you have done – all the effort spent in creating your advantage will be lost. Watch this 3 minute video in which Matt Cutts explains a few things on how & why Google displays certain results from the ‘link:’ operator. Where you can see what Google sees ( in backlink terms) and how the ‘Big G’ evaluates these.

Targeted Website Traffic – Exploit the HandHeld Market

Richard — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 02:09:54 +0000

There are dozens – perhaps even hundreds – of sites that offer free downloads for handhelds. And most handheld users are always on the lookout for something to read on that little screen. It will cost less than $50 to pay someone from Guru.com, Elance.com, or Scriptlance.com to format your product for the handheld market. And with over 11 million handheld users out there, that’s a lot of potential viral traffic for your web site.

Combine Survey and Polls with PPC

You probably already know that surveys are excellent for finding out what your target market wants. But if used in combination with cheap, quick and dirty Google PPC, surveys can also deliver a good amount of targeted prospects to your site every month. You must do some keyword research first. You’ll need to find keywords and key phrases that are related to your survey topic but don’t have too many Google campaigns running.

You can do this very quickly with a tool like Jeff Alderson’s AdWord Analyzer, since it will show you exactly how many Google campaigns are running for various keywords at any given time. Second, sign up for an inexpensive survey service like Survey Monkey (www[dot]surveymonkey[dot]com). We don’t recommend free survey services, since they tend to limit the number of participants, and the whole point is to get as many people as possible to take your survey. Now design a survey that will appeal to your target market.

Next, come up with an incentive for people to take your survey. Make it a download, so you can capture the prospect’s email address. And make it viral. Even a simple white paper can be viral. You don’t necessarily have to cram it with sales links. Just make sure your URL is conspicuously listed on every page. Now put up a simple web page that introduces people to the survey topic, offers the incentive, asks for an email address where you can send the download link and the survey results, and links to the survey.

Finally, use at least a dozen of the keywords your researched earlier to set up Google AdWords campaigns advertising your survey. Make sure the ad uses your keyword, and that it mentions the incentive. “Take this photography survey, get a free gift.” You don’t have to be the #1 ad. You can even be on the second or third page. The point is to capture a targeted prospect’s contact information for a very small investment. But there are some additional serious fringe benefits in addition to traffic.

First, you’ll collect valuable information on what your prospects are looking for. Second, you’ll have their permission to contact them with the survey results and the download link for the thank you gift. And third, if you make that free gift a viral report, you’ll eventually get more targeted web traffic.

Gold SEO Tips! – How Google rates links from Sites Such as Facebook & Twitter

Richard — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:04:16 +0000

A few red hot SEO tips straight from the horse’s mouth. Watch the video below but be careful to note these 2 important points.

1. Google does NOT treat links from .Edu or .Gov domains any differently that it does links from any other site.

2. For Google ( or any search engine) to crawl and index your Facebook pages you need to configure your privacy settings to allow this.

SEO Gold !

This Simple Practice is Still One of the Best for Guaranteed Website Traffic

Richard — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:51:48 +0000

Even though nowadays we’re all buried deep in junk emails and spam, it is still possible to make new business contacts on the internet. The recent joint venture craze reflects the simple principle that in the end, people do business with PEOPLE – not with bits, bytes and pixels.

Old fashioned networking is still alive and kicking online. Its the best method for getting some good exposure if you’re just starting out and have no money for marketing. By building strong business relationships, you’ll soon have other marketers offering to link to you, publish your articles, write about your site in their newsletter, and maybe even offer you free advertising.

As with all business networking, look for ways to help your peers or colleagues. If they own a website, offer them a backlink on yours. If they happen to have a subscriber list, you could set up a purposed page, and give them a rebate on any commissions. If they write their own content or articles, perhaps you can turn them into a mini-ebook and offer it to all your visitors. There is no reason you can’t be proactive, and send an email to non-competitors – or perhaps even competitors – whose sites you find admirable. You don’t have to consider every competitor your total enemy. Simply put look for opportunities to assist.

One easy way to help – provided you do it diplomatically – is to point out a problem on someone’s site or in their published article(s). If you find a faulty link or another other problem, drop them an email to let them know. Most webmasters WANT to know if a link suddenly stops working or if their database is generating server errors.

Another way to make powerful friends online is to read your Junk mail. And that is because ALL online sellers will want to know if someone is promoting their products via an illegal practice such as Spam. This is because it’s not just the Spammer who can suffer some stiff legal penalties – the vendor can too. So if you see someone else’s products being sold via Spam, email to them and let them know. Make sure you keep the original Spam, and send it to them as an attachment (not forwarded) so they receive all the mail headers intact for proof.

If you make 20 strong, personal, one-on-one business contacts every month, at least five of them will end up sending you some traffic.

Somehow, someday, they’ll start sending the right kinds of visitors to you, almost guaranteed website traffic. It might be by via linking to you. They may mention your site in a viral ebook or in some of their published content. They may want to do a JV or partner on a money making project. They might do all these things – and many more. Yes, it’s old fashioned. It’s not autopilot. It’s not passive. But networking costs you nothing except time – the guaranteed website traffic that results can be worth gold in the longer term.

The Mega Targeted Traffic System is a proven system to drive guaranteed website traffic for free, from Google.

Guaranteed SEO – Traffic Secrets the Experts Don’t Want You to Know

Richard — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:22:27 +0000

This requires that you get your mind around your site’s subject matter and the products you may be offering. Targeting requires your understanding of this. You must identify not only the type of traffic or visitors you desire on your site, but also the kind of traffic or visitors you don’t.

So let’s get to it. Simply put this is here because of its relevance to the subject matter and importance in achieving the overall aim and the results you ultimately want. You may also discover that a level of imagination is needed. It’s something I have learned and it is very useful in the online business world.

A fundamental Guaranteed SEO principle is the simple reciprocal link principle – find websites with decent rankings and plenty of traffic, and trade links with them. Do not just tke it for granted that because you’re just starting with a website that a highly traffic’ed authority site isn’t going to give a small new site owner like yourself a link of any sort?

There is one way to find out. – Ask them.

It will help if you have some kind of relationship with the webmaster or site owner. Even without a relationship, occasionally you can use the time-honored free market tactic of bribery and offer to pay for getting a link from an authority website. Request a link. If you get declined, say “Would you consider accepting $100 to link back to me?” You’d be surprised at how many site owners will be eager and accept your request!

This works the best with private sites that have a good rank in the top 10 for targeted keywords. There is no point in trying to get a backlink from CNN or TIME or Cosmopolitan’s site. But if you’re selling weight loss products, and $50 will buy you a backlink from a small web site that’s ranked well for “low-carbohydrate desserts,” you’re probably better-off buying that link than paying for $50 worth of PPC advertising. This also can’t hurt your own search engine ranking.

Be certain to have a written agreement regarding exactly what the backlink will say (you want your keywords in it) and the duration of the link – a year, six months, forever etc.

If you want to guarantee your search engine optimization that is at least as effective as your competitors, a similar technique involves finding all the sites that backlink to your competitors, and offering them a monetary incentive to add your link to their websites. You can find these websites by using Google and typing in “link:www.yourcompetitorslink.com.” Getting these backlinks to your site will contribute to your website as much as it does theirs, thereby canceling out their ranking advantage from these links.

Guaranteed SEO Juice from Update Services

Richard — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:14:31 +0000

No this is not about golf.

Here a quick way to create a massive bout of SEO juice. It often referred to as pinging, basically it means you are alerting update services that you have made an update or addition to a website. The “ping” notifies them and all being well should trigger a reaction that may include checking out this update, adding it to an index and effectively boosting your SEO Juice.

Here is my list of 164 update sites .

api.moreover.com/RPC2
api.my.yahoo.co.jp/RPC2
api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
audiorpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
blogpeople.net/ping
blogsearch.google.ae/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.at/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.be/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.bg/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.ca/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.ch/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.cl/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.cr/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.hu/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.id/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.il/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.in/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.it/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.jp/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.ma/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.nz/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.th/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.uk/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.ve/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.co.za/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.ar/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.au/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.br/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.co/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.do/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.mx/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.my/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.pe/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.sa/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.sg/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.tr/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.tw/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.ua/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.uy/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com.vn/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.de/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.es/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.fi/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.fr/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.gr/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.hr/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.ie/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.in/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.it/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.jp/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.lt/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.nl/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.pl/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.pt/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.ro/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.ru/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.se/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.sk/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.tw/ping/RPC2
blogsearch.google.us/ping/RPC2
feedsky.com/api/RPC2
hamo-search.com/ping.php
holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/

http://1470.net/api/ping

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.feedster.com/ping.php

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://bitacoras.net/ping

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc

http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com/RPC2

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt

http://ping.amagle.com/

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.blkoggers.ip/RPC

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.blogg.de/

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.weblogs.se/

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/

http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2

http://pingqueue.com/rpc/

http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/

http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.britblog.com/

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

http://rpc.newsgator.com/

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://rpc.wpkeys.com/

http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx

http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogoole.com/ping/

http://www.blogoon.net/ping/

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/

http://www.imblogs.net/ping/

http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/

http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php

http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2

http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/pingPodcast

ping.blogoon.net/
ping.blogs.yandex.ru/RPC2
ping.fc2.com/
ping.feedburner.com/
ping.kutsulog.net/
ping.myblog.jp/
ping.namaan.net/rpc
ping.snap.com/ping/RPC2
ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
ping.wordblog.de/
r.hatena.ne.jp/rpc
rpc.bloggerei.de/ping/
rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
rpc.pingomatic.com
rpc.reader.livedoor.com/ping
rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
rpc.technorati.jp/rpc/ping
rpc.twingly.com/
rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
wasalive.com/ping/
www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
xmlrpc.blogg.de
xping.pubsub.com/ping/
zhuaxia.com/rpc/server.php

This is just a small taste of the power of Guaranteed SEO. If you want to leverage search engine optimization to its fullest extent, go to GuaranteedSEO.IncomeTimeFreedom.com and get yourself a copy of “Guaranteed SEO” – Your guide to Completely Dominate the Search Engines.

This is a list I have built up over time and have only had positive effects from using them, that I am aware of. Take care not to abuse them. No guaranteed affect is implied either way.

Guaranteed SEO – Traffic Secrets the Experts Don’t Want You to Know

Keyword Research, SEO & You = Success?

Richard — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:49:17 +0000

Lets talk about keyword research for your website. If you will target the wrong keywords with your SEO campaign you will lose the battle even before it begins. Nowadays you cannot expect to rank for broad match highly competitive keywords like “weight loss” or “build muscle” – the sites that are on the first page of Google (and that should be your primary goal) are several years old and have tens or even hundred of thousands backlinks, it is almost impossible to outrank them with a brand new website in a short period of time.

Alternatively, it would be easy to rank on the first place for the phrase “cool and stupid shoe widgetization” but can you imagine anyone searching for that ?

So our goal is to find long tail keywords, related to your site’s theme that have many searches per month and low competition. All the SEO experts call that “niche marketing”. Niche marketing is the way to go for us that don’t have large budgets and a staff of hundred people to back up our SEO campaigns.

There are unlimited amount of niches that you have never heard of. Like “shiny steel can openers” and “dstt cards”. “World of Warcraft mining guide” and “fish oil supplements”. Find such a niche that is not too competitive, do a proper keyword research, write content around that topic and bang! – you have got a niche website that is getting easy traffic and hopefully generates some money. Not all niches are money makers though but a lot of them can make money with Adsense or affiliate products. If there is no product you can create your own and market it, but that is another discussion.

Lets stay on track with the keyword research. There are a lot of keyword tools out there that makes our life easier.

As an example, let’s assume we have a website that is selling baseball bats. Now if you thought that your goal is to rank first for “baseball bats”, good luck with that.
Ideally, you are looking for 2-4 words combinations that have more than 10,000 searches per month and less than 20,000 competing websites – usually it is fairly easy to hit the first page of Google with these. Although it is also depending on factors like your niche, how much you are making per visitor etc.

Even if there are a few competitors, always check the sites that are on the first page. Authority sites like Wikipedia, university sites and such usually have tons of backlinks and are hard to beat.

The internet is a huge place, so whilst you will find a lot of competition in some niche’s there is a lot of business to be had. If you look hard enough you will find the gaps and then you can exploit them.

If you are serious about keyword research, I strongly recommend Micro Niche Finder. This will be one of the best investments you have ever made. When I have found this tool, I have cut my keyword research time by like 80%. You can find more related keywords, check competition, dig for more keywords and check more search networks with a single click.
This tool can do a lot more than just keyword research – it will help you to profit from article marketing, Yahoo Answers, Squidoo etc. Do yourself a favour and watch the free videos that are available on their website:

Micro Niche Finder

If you combine this with some solid guaranteed SEO practices, and disciplined action you are on the right track.

Increase Website Traffic by Links to Your Site

Richard — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:22:02 +0000

The sole purpose for your own site is for having people on the internet visit it. For people to know that your site actually exists, you must promote or advertise the site within the online community, showing what you do and most importantly what you can do for them. Promoting your website to drive more site traffic is possible by having a quantity of links to your site posted through other websites of related and/or similar subject matter and interests. Today having a top quality website is necessary for all businesses, small or large. Promoting your site to increase the traffic can make or break the venture. At the end of the day, you do not create a website for it to just to be there and have no one look at it. The purpose of having a site is for optimal viewing and value.

If you want to increase your sites traffic with backlinks, there are a few things you can and should do. Since most of the traffic generally comes search engines and directories such as Yahoo!, Google, Dog Pile, and Ask you can register your site(s) with many of the most popular search engines to ensure your site is found in searches. Although some search engines can find your site by themselves, it is best to submit an eye catching, detailed listing yourself to increase your chances. The more directories and search engines you submit your site to, the higher your chances increase of traffic from the online community.

Creating a sign up list for those visitors to your site who may want to receive email contact from you, such as newsletters about your site. Creating a mailing list is a great way to keep in touch with your site visitors and to offer promotions or send regular news and updated information. People like to be kept abreast of what is going on with your web site and they may like to receive special promotions that can drive them back to your site to make a purchase of products or services you offer. When creating a sign up list, a visitor must request information sent to their email address, therefore avoiding the pitfalls of spam. No one enjoys spam mails; regardless of whether it is, a product that you think might interest them.

Forums, Message boards and chat rooms with subjects relating to your offering work are great ways to promote your web site. Although you should never directly advertise on any of these, you can make yourself known and available to answer questions and build up credibility. You can often also include your signature at the end of your posts. Using a signature file with all your contact information as well as a link to your site in every email and forum post is a great way to increase traffic to your website as well.

Everyone loves something for free. Promotional gifts can encourage traffic to your site that can be of considerable value. By offering something for free related to your target market such as downloadable forms, software, consultation, newsletters, articles and other valuable resources full of information, you can draw people in. You may also consider an (free) opt-in, where an entrant must sign up in order to enter into the newsletter.

Purchasing advertising space on more successful sites in the same field as your own can also increase traffic with links to your site. There are many sites with ad space available at affordable rates. You can also choose to place your ad within a search engine or directory, or even in a magazine or local newspaper for a slightly more in advertising costs though. You should have your site and contact information on personalized stationary to use with all your transactions made while you are not on the Internet as well.

There is a large variety of ways to advertise and to increase the traffic to your website. Regardless of the field of interest, there are people out there surfing the Internet that will be interested in what you can offer them. Creating the site was only the first step, now you must find your audience; do not expect them to find you. You must guide them to you through relentless promotion and advertising.

A Short History of SEO – Part 3 ( of 3)

Richard — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 02:18:10 +0000

Part 3. The Age of Google.

Its 2004 and three major search engines remain; MSN (now Bing), Yahoo! and of course Google. The era of keyword spamming is over. These remaining three start incorporating page ranking factors into their algorithms. Content providers and webmasters have to rely on creativity to promote and generate links to achieve long term increases in search engine rankings.

By 2005 Google starts taking into account a users search history to come up with personalized search results when logged in. Then 2 years later Google starts a campaign against paid links that affect Pagerank. Another 2 years on and the company announces it will attempt to stop the effects on Pagerank from “nofollow” links.

In todays time, SEO is for the most part, a conversation with Google search. The search engine has over 70% of the market and is the place you have to be seen, if you intend driving any worthwhile volume of organic traffic. SEO Campaigns are far more labor intensive and complex now than they were a decade ago, but this is good thing from a quality perspective. Users get better, more relevant search results and providers actually have to provide value in order to get higher rankings on the serps.

A Short History of SEO. – Part 2

Richard — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:36:45 +0000

A Star is Born.

The heavy reliance of on site factors such a keyword density, which could be (and was being) directly manipulated by webmasters to control their rankings had gotten many search engines in difficulty. To offer useful search results to internet users, search engines had to alter the way in which ranking of pages, that actually were relevant and offered valuable content was performed. More complex algorithms had started being developed that took into account off-site factors, such as directory age and link popularity to determine rankings. The cracking of search engine algorithms became a more difficult and sophisticated task.

At this time the head of the search engine pack was Alta Vista with the balance split between Lycos, MSN, Yahoo and InfoSeek. All of these still exist today but are (as we know) less favored. InfoSeek and AltaVista have offloaded their search, both of which are now ‘powered by Yahoo!’.

Even though algorithm had improved black hat SEO’s were still manipulating them and site theft and page jacking was rampant. On September4 1998 Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google algorithm ‘PageRank’, determined site rankings by measuring the quantity and quality of the inbound links. Google’s superior, relevant search results immediately attracted a loyal bunch of followers and the competing search engines began to realize how important it was to keep up with Google’s new page ranking technology.

The new millennium dawned and Google was solidifying its lead and fast becoming the de-facto search engine. The former front runners were just as fast becoming internet history. In fact by 2001 Excite, Lycos, AltaVista and Hotbot were all but abandoned by users.

Here’s a short video that was made just over a year ago at Google’s 10th birthday in September 2008. Its short but shows how far the company that was built on a university project has come in 10 years……

Part 3 here…..

A Short History of SEO

Richard — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 02:21:27 +0000

Part 1. The Early Years

The actual term SEO (search engine optimization) started being thrown around in 1997. Webmasters and content providers started doing SEO in the mid 1990’s. What is SEO today however is though quite a drastic revolution from what constituted SEO back then.

People started to mess around with SEO concepts in the days when Yahoo was the dominant force in the search engine space. Back then webmasters only needed to submit their URL’s the different search engines. These search engines would send spiders to crawl and index the sites. As soon as the realization was made of having your website on the first page of a search engine’s results, they began in earnest for ways to manipulate the algorithms used to create these results.

Search engine algorithms relied on on-site information to determine page rankings, in other words they relied on information that was provided by the webmaster. Things such as meta tags, density and index files. All webmasters needed to do was put in the right keywords in the sufficient density and they would start seeing front-page search engine rankings in no time. The web content providers also started to manipulate source code to get clients higher rankings. This started to result in SERP’s becoming unreliable and often filled with spam pages who’s keyword tags did not accurately represent the actual content of the page.

The first algorithm ‘crackers’ appeared around 1997. Being able to decode a search engines algorithm (which back then was quite possible), unscrupulous webmasters could get sites into the top 10 as their will. In 1997 several SEO providers decoded Excites algorithm to its full extent of 35 parameters.

Part 2 …..

Staying with the historical theme here’s a short video about how it all began…

What is a Link Network and Why it Has a Massive Impact on Your SEO Strategy and Google Ranking.

Richard — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:35:53 +0000

Every page on your website has a link network, this network of links is made up of both internal and external links so what is it about them the Google uses to calculate the actual pagerank.

At a high level , there are 3 factors that your link network will influence in respect to page rank and what you must understand about them.

1. The Number of External links

The quantity of external links to a page, suggest to Google that the page contains worthwhile content. After all if an external source has taken the time to link back to a particular page it must be for a reason. However because it is possible fairly easily to manufacture volumes of links analyzing the quantity is only a small part of Google’s calculation.

2. The Authority of the linking pages

Essentially when another site links to a page it transfers some of its authority to the page it is linking to. So if a site with a page rank of zero links to one of your pages, Google factors “zero” into this part of its calculation. Although Google’s exact algorithm is a well kept secret, it is known that it is important to note that page rank is not a linear scale. i.e. A page rank of 5 does not have 5 times more authority than a page with a rank of 1. The number of total search results is also included as a multiplier. So in a case of a total 1000 search results, simply put, a page with rank of 5 will have at least 80% more authority than a page with a rank of one. This is not including all the other factors (known and not known) included in the Google algorithm.

Links from higher ranked sites have more authority to share and that authority is what will contribute to the PR of the site it is linking to.

3. Anchor text

Anchor text is used to determine the actual topic of the content and its relevance. If the phrase “Guaranteed Search Engine Optimization” , “Guaranteed SEO” or similar phrases are used as the text behind which all the external links is placed Google recognizes this and understands that the destination site is about Guaranteed SEO.

I see so many people dropping their links into forums and as blog comments, regardless of the subject matter of the sites and their own websites. If you have to choose one of the backlinking tasks to focus on in order to build your page rank start with point 2, and try wherever possible use good anchor text. Following through with a quantity of these quality ‘well anchored’ backlinks will work wonders for page rank.

SEO : What Google knows about Spam.

Richard — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:12:00 +0000

I have been getting quite a bit of spam lately to my blog in the form of (attempted) track backs and ping backs from spammers. They are simply just keyword stuffed renditions of nothing. Anyway I came across this short video which explains how Google views website spamming and because it was front of mind, I found it quite interesting and good to know especially from an SEO perspective.

You may too.

Guaranteed SEO – What Google knows about Spam.

The Website Search Engine Optimization Caffeine rush…..

Richard — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:37:19 +0000

When it comes to the top results that are displayed Google Caffeine is going to give them a significant jolt. This revamp of the emphasis on real-time results gives Website search engine optimization savvy webmasters an opportunity to propel their sites to the top of “Big G’s” results page.

The Caffeine update focuses mainly on real-time search. The “traditional” top search results will be superseded by the “latest results”, which essentially will be an aggregation of all the most recent blog posts, press releases, social network updates and news articles or stories that are relevant to the search term.

This real-time search already made its debut . Just before New Years Eve, a small earthquake impacted southern California - within 2 minutes typing “Sandiego earthquake” into Google returned the ‘latest results’ which included Tweets and news site stories.

Each time you tweet, do a press release or a blog post is published you could appear at the very top of Google’s search results – which will pour organic traffic from these “latest results” right into your website.

I am sure you’ll want to take advantage of Real-time Search….

This is seriously an incredible opportunity for your site to enjoy the love of Google, for a while (per content) at least. Ever heard the saying “ Timing is everything.” When you post fresh content your website will be possibly at the top of the relevant search results, so time the publication of all your new content to strategically coincide with your other marketing campaigns, product launches etc.

Website Decaff is not a good idea..

Even before the Google caffeine release, content was King and keywords Queen in the Website Search Engine Optimization world. With the introduction of Caffeine however and its emphasis on content, commissioning your content sources to publish original and fresh content onto your sites and blog becomes even more important. That is the main overall purpose of the caffeine update. – To generate more accurate, relevant and timely search results and Google can only achieve this goal by placing a heavier emphasis on content.

If you make one change to your Website Search Engine Optimization strategy, it should be a renewed focus on content, which will improve both long term and short term results. For the immediate future, you will enjoy an increase of targeted website traffic from being high up on the SERPS and the “ Latest Results”. In the longer term this content will build your authority and relevancy in Google for permanent search results.

Google Caffeine does alter the Website Search Engine optimization playing field, but for webmasters who understand the power of content, this update actually is good news. With a lowered emphasis on arbitrary backlinks Google Caffeine will reward those who publish fresh and relevant quality content. Simply fill up your coffee mug (no decaff though) and let the content propel targeted web site traffic to your site.

Targeted Web Traffic Explosion From Back Linking Strategies

Richard — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 08:09:58 +0000

In order to increase your visibility in a competitive market you need to increase site traffic, which will in turn improve your targeted web traffic. Your site is as good as the links you have created. By providing links that your customers consider interesting will improve the quality of your website and draw additional targeted web traffic. Building links is the framework for a successful internet search engine optimization strategy.

Linking to other sites informs your customers of the products you recommend and trust, develops a relationship between you and other website owners and will increase site traffic by associating with other sites customers like and trust.

2 MAIN TYPES OF LINKS TO INCLUDE IN YOUR INTERNET SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION PLAN

1. Recommended Links

The main objective of these links is to assist your customers. To obtain recommended links for your site visit your competitors’ sites and see what links they refer to. This will also help you in finding what your customers are looking for and will also present a good basis for a reciprocal linking strategy, mentioned below.

In addition you can obtain advice from your customers. This can be accomplished by performing a survey or by merely interviewing your customers. Internet-savvy customers will enlighten you about what they judge to be professional sites and what they like or dislike with regards to your links. This will help control the quality of the links on your site.

Make certain your recommended links possess a high page rank with internet search engines as this will increase site traffic to your website.

2. Reciprocal Links

An underlying principle of internet search engine optimization is to develop reciprocal links. These are links from other related sites that guides targeted web traffic to your site.

Get going by researching those sites you might contemplate linking to. Create two lists – one you feel your customers will have an interest in and another that is advantageous to your site. Compare the two lists for commonality and create areas of related topics. Identify 3 key words appropriate to each topic.

Then do a search using a Meta search engine using all three words for each topic. Include those sites that are shown for all 3 keywords in your priority list.

Short list those that seem to be hopeful and prepare an email to the webmaster for each site. Be succinct and sell your site to them.

The concluding stage is to negotiate the location of the link on both sites. Place their link on your site as soon as possible then inform them that their link is live on your site. Check their site regularly to ensure they are upholding their promise as well.

Including recommended and reciprocal links advances the internet search engine optimization of your site. The point is not only to increase site traffic, but also create visibility to your customers and generate targeted web traffic. Your customers will now be able to find you using search engines and through other websites. Yet again, this means increased exposure, targeted web traffic and additional profit.

Google is slapping PPC accounts all over the place.

Richard — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:32:57 +0000

Yes, you may of heard about it already. It’s not a new thing that certain policies are reviewed and this is just the latest one of those, for sure. It is though fairly strategic in nature and, worth considering the implications that it could have for your targeted web traffic.

Google has started coming down hard on affiliate advertisers using PPC. Lets understand why? It’s because (in the eyes of google) affiliates offer little or no value on their sites. The users experience is degraded and therefore Google is degraded. Something that is against the Google philosophy obviously.

And it’s not only limited to affiliates, some niche’s such as “Acai berry”, “Weight loss” and Home Business are also being heavily scrutinized and slapped at slightest lack of credibility.

Now this is an interesting twist from the “Big G”, as the initial success PPC also known as Adwords was largely brought about by affiliate marketers and this would still form a large portion of Goggle’s revenue today. However Google is prepared to ‘clean up’ these areas even at its own cost, because its mission first and foremost, is to serve relevant valuable content to it users.

What does this mean if PPC is your only, primary or secondary forms of marketing and Google no longer permits your ads? Your traffic is going down, W A Y D O W N !

Consider this little statement (a favorite of mine) .

“Adwords are temporary, Website Search Engine Optimization is forever.”

Bottom-line If you want to protect your targeted website traffic and ultimately your livelihood from the whims of Google you need to know how the search engines work and how to take advantage of them with good set of Internet Search Engine Optimization techniques.

You need to have your site(s) optimized for organic traffic, not even Google can control all of that. Whilst it may be able to exert a significant influence on this it’s true, but not at the flick of the switch like it can with its own Adwords program.

The knowledge of any policy adjustment is regard to organic search will circulate the community in advance and it will also take time to take effect. So if your site’s prepared and setup for SEO you will be able to adjust where required, well in advance – creating a nice competitive advantage over those that aren’t. If it’s not, well… don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Get Guaranteed SEO and completely dominate the search engines.

Internet Search Engine Optimization: 3 Ways to Rapidly Advance Your Rankings

Richard — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 10:10:28 +0000

With today’s technology driven society, having a website for your business is a necessity. Customers expect to be able to search the internet and find their preferred business online. However, simply just owning website is not sufficient. You need to expose your website to your potential customers such that they are able to find it when searching online. The ultimate way of achieving this is through internet search engine optimization (SEO) which allows your website to rank in search results.

A well designed internet search engine optimized site will provide you with the opportunity to rank on page 1 of the search engines, expose your business to your potential customers, drive targeted web traffic to your site and ultimately improve your profits. The higher your site ranks, the more likely your potential customers will click on it, thus your aim is to rank as high as possible.

3 WAYS TO PROGRESS YOUR INTERNET SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

1. Keyword Research for SEO

Choose the keywords you want to rank for carefully. When a customer searches using one of these keywords, you want to display on page 1 of that search engine. Your internet search engine optimization strategy should include multiple keywords for each page in your site. Furthermore, your keywords should be at least two words in length as this drives more targeted web traffic to your site. For example, rather than optimizing your site for “marketing”, consider using “internet marketing specialist.”

There are both paid and free tools available to conduct a thorough analysis of the most relevant keywords to use in your internet search engine optimization efforts in order to direct targeted web traffic.

2. Keyword Frequency and Location

Keyword density and location on your website play an important role in internet search engine optimization. The higher your keywords are on your page, the better your ranking and the more targeted web traffic you will receive. Include your keywords in your page title and in the first few paragraphs of the page.

Another thing to consider is your keyword frequency. Search engines observe how often you mention the term relative to the rest of the words on the page. The higher your keyword density percentage, the higher your page ranking. It is important to note though, that search engines pay attention to keyword spamming (excessive use of a keyword) in an attempt to rank for that keyword just to get targeted web traffic. Search engines that detect spamming are likely to exclude your site in their results and may even ban your site permanently. Deliberate spamming is ethically incorrect; therefore exclude it from your SEO strategy.

3. SEO Rewards Relevant Content

Be sure that your page reflects the keywords that your potential customers are searching for. Your content should also be of sufficient value that customers find it useful in relation to their search.

The use of large graphics is not recommended as this reduces the open speed of your website. Whilst they may look nice, they inhibit your internet search engine optimization efficiency.

Relevant content also refers to the use of alternative keywords, or keyword variations. For example, when using “internet marketing specialist” you can also use “online marketing expert”. This approach keeps your website relevant yet reduces your risk of spamming.

Implementing a well thought out internet search engine optimization plan can have a massive impact on your business by directing more targeted web traffic to your site. Remember though that you are not only trying to please the search engines, but also the customers that are visiting your website. Aim for a balance between the ultimate customer experience and what the search engines want.

Invest in SEO and Earn the Best Interest

Richard — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:34:12 +0000

Benjamin Franklin said that…
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

The field of professional Website Search Engine Optimization is no different.

Guaranteed SEO is not just a technical approach to get you on the first page of Google for a certain keyword or key phrase.

If your business approaches it from that angle you might never see the importance of Internet search engine optimization or achieve anything close to organic targeted web traffic.

Think of proactively marketing yourself online as creating little pieces of dust floating around online eventually connecting directly to your brand or business.

If you connect all those little pieces of dust they all funnel down to your website creating many little pathways to your website, the bigger the network of dust the more opportunity for really becoming visible online in front of your target audience. This network takes some time to build but once it is built, a website can see a nice steady stream of traffic and if done correctly, it will be qualified targeted website traffic.

This approach should not be viewed as just something technical to manipulate search results but rather as a long term internet marketing plan with the goal of rankings as a byproduct but not the only byproduct. Perhaps this misunderstanding is a hangover from the “meta tag” stuffing days of the late nineties and early 2000’s when this practice could rank a porn site for the word “Smithsonian”. Nowadays much more effort is required for professional SEO.

As with most things in this world if you have a way of prioritizing what to do and when, instead of trial and error then you optimize your efforts and reap the results sooner.
SEO will always take time to really ramp up and work correctly, so it is important to realize that it is a strategic investment of time and money not dissimilar from many other marketing or business investments.

Investment into an online presence or business website is very important. Equally as important to an offline “bricks and mortar” business investment. It will bring returns if its done correctly and not just in the form of search engine rankings, which many think is the way to gauge if your online marketing campaign is actually working.

Real rewards come from bloggers writing about your business and products or perhaps potential customers contacting you via social networks for example. This will bring a huge increase in your website activity and does not happen by accident, it will be as a direct result of your SEO efforts and the time for rankings to of been ‘awarded’ from the search engines. It is critically important to realize that search engine optimization is a long term approach that does require some patience and ability to think outside the box.

No related posts.

Internet Marketing Promotion: How Sponsor Ads Can Increase Site Traffic

Richard — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:06:08 +0000

These days so many websites and E-zines have ads displayed all over their pages. Sometimes these pop up or flashing ads can distort your view and are often hard to get rid of. With time, search engines and directories are allowing increased numbers of sponsor ads, which is good news if you intend to increase site traffic. Whilst those sponsor ads can be frustrating, some are just too compelling to ignore. It’s often true that if it were not for seeing that sponsor ad you would never know about that website’s existence.

The two primary reasons to include sponsor ads in your small business internet marketing promotion strategy are to increase the awareness of your business, product or brand and secondly to drive targeted web traffic to your website and increase profits. These goals are critical to the success of small businesses and their websites. In order to grow, small businesses need to increase site traffic by reaching as many customers as possible.

Furthermore, people like to know what options are available, so sponsor ads provide you with a channel to broadcast to your potential customers, the benefits of your products and why they need them.

Sponsor advertising is an effective small business internet marketing promotion strategy as it generates targeted web traffic resulting in additional product sales and ultimately improves your bottom line. Sponsor advertising is becoming more popular with small business owners, as it stimulates relationship building with potential customers by delivering valued information in advance.

Sponsor ads can either be free, bought, sold or even traded depending where you look and what your objectives are. Of course you are also directed by your internet marketing promotion budget.

There are benefits to sponsor ads for both the website owner and the sponsor. The website owner gains by providing updated and customer worthy information to their visitors. The customer distinguishes the website as being receptive to their requirements and is motivated to return, thus building a more solid relationship with the website.

The sponsor benefits as they leverage off the credibility, relationship, trust and customer database of the website owner to create awareness and thus product sales. The more proficient the sponsor is at developing good customer relationships, the quicker they will see an increase in their sales. Customers anticipate dependability, reliability and outstanding customer service. By providing this to them you can expect to turn your targeted web traffic into long-term customers with incremental benefits to your profits.

Another fantastic resource to gain targeted web traffic is E-zines. There are hundreds of E-zines to pick from, however the secret is to generate targeted web traffic and not just merely increase site traffic, so be sure to only choose those that are consistent with your business goals.

The Internet is the best platform to develop and grow your small business internet marketing promotion strategy. There are literally millions of people searching the internet daily. The more sponsor ads you have out there, the better your chances of increasing site traffic, leading to more potential customers reviewing your products and making purchases. By making your small business available to the world and making it easy to find, not only will you increase site traffic, but you will certainly make more sales and increase your bottom line as well.

Use every opportunity available to promote your website and reap the rewards. The choice is yours – leverage the advantages of sponsor ads and be the next pop-up, flashing, “can’t get rid of” ad online. Your goal is to be the online advert that gets in the face of your potential customers and is just too tempting to push aside. Once you increase the awareness of your business and products, you will generate more targeted web traffic and receive a flood of online sales for your small business, making your efforts and hard work worth while.